


Dignity for the Dead

by KrisEleven



Series: Halloween 2013 [2]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Forum: Goldenlake, Gen, stormwings generally being nasty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrisEleven/pseuds/KrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cleon defends the dead from Stormwings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dignity for the Dead

The sun was setting, and command on both sides had ordered the day's fighting forces to retreat. The Tortallans had retreated into the fort they guarded, the Scanrans across the river to their camps on the northern side. The battleground was not silent, though the deafening cacophony of battle had dulled to the shouts of fewer men, the cries of the wounded, the sound the cart made as it rolled over enemy bodies and abandoned weapons.

Cleon could have been inside, resting after hours of brutal battle. His rank gave him that right. Instead, he was trudging through bloody mud. Healers had already searched through this section of ground; he and the men with him were loading the Tortallan men into carts so they could have their rites and their bodies sent to the pyres. He was stupid with fatigue, which is why he didn't notice the metallic clanging, the shouts and calls that were coming from above him, not until one of his men shouted for his attention.

"Bows!" Cleon ordered, his voice rough as he readied his own weapon. Nearby, he heard a shout and was familiar enough with the enemy's language to know the Scanran soldiers collecting their dead nearby were drawing their bows as well, preparing to meet the Immortals as they flew overhead. The Stormwings drew close, and the stench hit Cleon as strongly as their shouted taunts, incomprehensible over each other and the sounds their metal wings made as they beat the air.

A female dipped down within range. Cleon held a hand to stop his men from firing, knowing that they couldn't afford to waste their arrows, or their energy on this fight. She was pretty - what was human of her - with high, fine cheekbones, full lips, and startling blue eyes. She grinned at him, and if he could ignore the blood and mud and filth caked on her skin, he would have thought her beautiful.

"Come now, little lordling!" she called down to him. "Let us do our work now."

"You'll not defile these people while I stand," Cleon replied, keeping his voice strong, though it wanted to shake with anger. How dare she call what these Immortals did 'work', when everyone here had seen the atrocities they committed?

"Defile? Us? They are already dead, if you hadn't noticed, and not at our hands. At least they can have some purpose, now, instead of being piled into your cart like so much firewood. You'll have more to kill and cart away tomorrow! Let us have our fun tonight."

"Fun?" he choked out. "These are men, who died nobly, and you think I will let you take their dignity - "

"Do you feel better, cloaking yourself in your pretty lies?" she interrupted. The teasing lilt of her tone was gone, now. In its place, Cleon heard the coldness of steel, and blood and death. "Does it make your arms ache more fiercely, carting their dignity along with the blood and guts and bone? Will it make killing them all again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that seem like less of a waste?" She laughed and grinned when his reply was to pull taut the string on his bow, the chilling seriousness vanishing as quickly as it had overtaken her. "As you wish!" she cackled. "There is plenty of battleground; you can't keep us from all the entertainment you've been so gracious as to provide." She was out of his range before he could truly aim his weapon, and her group circled over him, yelling vulgar and foul things before flying to the east.

"Run back and inform Lord Raimond that we need more men out here, to drive them away," Cleon told one of the soldiers. He watched the man run off, and saw that the Scanrans, too, spoke to a Stormwing. Cleon watched as they gave the Immortal the same answer, watched as the group flew out of bow range and north, towards the river where the fighting had been thickest. Cleon met the gaze of the Scanran soldier and nodded, his gesture returned, before returning to work.

He lifted the legs of a young soldier who had suffered a blade stroke to the collarbone and moved the body into the cart. Cleon wondered if that Scanran soldier had killed any of the men whose broken bodies he had already loaded. Cleon grabbed the arms of a man disemboweled and lifted the body to the cart. He wondered if he himself would kill any of those Scanrans who had so readily defended the dignity of their dead, in the days to come. Cleon helped to lift the headless corpse of one of their own and prayed that the war would end.


End file.
